Baseball Bears Take Series with 9-1 Road Win over Stetson

DELAND, Fla. (School Release) - The Mercer baseball team has started its Atlantic Sun Conference schedule with back-to-back road series victories after a 9-1 rubber game win over Stetson on Sunday afternoon at Melching Field.

Mercer (19-7, 4-2 A-Sun) now sits in a tie with Kennesaw State for first-place in the A-Sun Conference standings through the first two weeks of league play and has still yet to lose a weekend series in 2013.

After an over three and a half hour rain and lightning delay before the game even started, Mercer wasted little time getting its bats going.

The Bears batted around in the top of the first and plated five runs in the frame. RBI doubles by senior Logan Gaines and junior Austin Barrett, an RBI single by junior Derrick Workman and a sacrifice fly by senior Evan Boyd made the score 5-0.

The Hatters and Bears traded runs over the next few innings before Mercer extended its lead with two more runs in the top of the fourth. Back-to-back RBI singles by Workman and senior Travis Benn pushed the visitor's advantage up to 8-1.

Workman put the finishing touches on a brilliant day at the plate when he crushed a solo home run to right field to put Mercer in front by a count of 9-1.

That would be plenty of run support for Bears starting pitcher DJ Johnson. The Adel, Ga. native threw seven innings and allowed just one run on nine hits to go along with seven strikeouts for his team-leading fifth win of the season.

Workman finished the game going 3-for-5 with a run scored, a stolen base and three RBI in the win.

Mercer is now off for one day before traveling to Savannah to take on Savannah State on Tuesday evening. Game time is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at Tiger Field.